Tell Me Why
by flowerchild3286
Summary: The night after the competition in Hungary, Payson can't sleep. She has questions that she needs answered, and since Sasha woke her up the night before, it was only fair that she wake him up to get her answers.


A/N: I've been going through my writing folder and found a few stories that I wrote and never published.

* * *

It had been weeks since Sasha had a good night's sleep. He would lie in bed for hours before he fell asleep each night, jerk awake half a dozen times, and then wake up for good before the sun ever rose. Every morning he felt like he was hung over, even though he hadn't had a drop of alcohol since the first night in Romania when he got so drunk that he threw a framed picture of him and Payson across the room. He shouldn't have brought the damn picture with him in the first place. He definitely shouldn't have fished it out of the broken glass the next morning and taped it up on the wall beside his bed.

This was the first time since he left the Rock that he'd been able to get into bed and just fall asleep, and the reason was obvious: he was back with his girls again. The relief he felt was profound.

And so was the annoyance he felt when someone knocked on his door at 2 a.m.

He jerked the door open, ready to tell off whatever stupid teenage kid thought waking people up at night was a funny prank. His protest died on his lips, though, because there _was_ a teenage kid standing at his door, but she wasn't playing a prank and she sure as hell wasn't stupid.

"Payson!" he cried out, too loud in his surprise. He cringed and continued at a quieter volume, "What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night."

"You woke me up in the middle of the night last night," she pointed out. That hadn't been one of his smarter moves. There were already rumors about them, so him coming to her hotel room while the whole city was asleep was probably the stupidest thing he could possibly do, but he had to tell her he was back. He couldn't let her spend another hour hating him.

There was no way to explain that, so he stared at her in silence until she said, "Can I come in?"

"You know that's not a good idea, Payson."

She rolled her eyes and brushed past him into the room. "Nothing ever is, is it? But I'm pretty sure we're the only people on this floor awake right now, so nobody is even going to know I'm here."

"And you're here why?" he asked again.

"Couldn't sleep," she said with a shrug, like it was no big deal for her to be here, in his room while they were both wearing nothing but their pajamas. He was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was shirtless. He searched around for something to put on.

Payson rolled her eyes again; she was apparently in a very sarcastic mood. "I know I'm pretty naïve about a lot of things, Sasha, but I have seen men without their shirts before. I've seen _you_ without your shirt before, lots of times."

"In the gym, while I was working out," he reminded her. "Not in a bedroom. It's different."

He could tell that she was biting back a response. He wanted to know what it was, but he wouldn't let himself ask. If she was holding back then there was probably a good reason. Instead he said, "So because you can't sleep, you think I shouldn't either?"

"Something like that." She looked his room in an effort to avoid the subject, and her eyes lighted on something he'd rather she not notice. The picture that had hung on his wall the entire time he was in Romania—him and Payson at the Rock invitational, taken right after she beat Kelly Parker out for gold. He'd been looking at it right before he fell asleep and it was laying on the nightstand.

She crossed the room to pick up the photo and sat down on the side of the bed with it. He wished she wouldn't do that. If someone came to the door (although who would do that at two in the morning he didn't have a clue) then Payson sitting on his bed would look so much worse than Payson standing just a few feet inside the room.

"I have this same picture in my bedroom back home," she said. "It's one of my favorites. Why is this one all scratched up?"

He hedged around the truth. "The frame broke. I had to fish it out of a bunch of glass shards."

She frowned down at the picture. "Why is it here?"

He was afraid that she was going to ask him that, because there was no good answer. Why was he looking at that picture before he fell asleep? Why had he spent the last few weeks staring at it on his wall? Why had he thrown it across the room when he was drinking? Why did he even bring it to Romania at all? He couldn't even explain it to himself, much less to Payson.

To distract her, he asked, "Why are you really here, Payson? I know it's not just because you can't sleep."

"I just want to understand why," she said. For a moment, he thought she was still talking about the photograph, but she kept speaking. "Why did you leave? Why did you come back?"

"You know why I left. I was hurting you girls."

"Bullshit."

For a long while all he did was stare at her, unsure of what to say. He'd heard her swear before, but never with such vehemence, and never directed at him. All he could say in response was, "What?"

"That's bullshit, Sasha, and you know it. Emily, Lauren, and Kaylie hurt _themselves_. You did everything you could to help them, but they still screwed up. That's life, Sasha. You can't keep people from making mistakes."

"Maybe you're right," he said. He didn't really agree, but arguments with Payson tended to last a long time and he needed to pick his battles. "Maybe I didn't hurt them, but I did hurt _you_."

She stood up and walked back to him, not stopping until there were only a few inches between them. "You're right, you did hurt me. You have no clue how badly you hurt me, because you _left_. You left me alone to deal with the fallout. Before you left it was looks and whispers and innuendos, but once you were gone it was insults to my face. And it wasn't just people calling me a slut or jailbait like they were before. They all made sure to remind me every damn day that it was my fault that we didn't have a coach anymore. So was that your way of protecting me?"

"It wasn't supposed to be that way," he whispered. Things were supposed to be better for Payson after he was gone, not worse. "Payson, as long as you and I are working together there are going to be rumors about us. I thought that if I was gone the rumors would die away."

"Well, you are a complete idiot sometimes," she said grudgingly, "so I guess I can kind of buy you thinking something that stupid. Did you really think that I would just be okay with you leaving, though? After everything we've been through?"

No, he didn't. He knew she wouldn't be okay with it, and that was the reason he'd sneaked away like a coward rather than telling her goodbye to her face. He wasn't about to admit that, though. "You're seventeen, Payson. A kid. Sometimes you want things that aren't good for you."

"And you're not good for me?"

"No, I'm not."

"Then why did you come back?" she asked. "If you're so bad for me, then why are you here now?"

He thought about the words she said to him in Romania, the bitterness and disappointment in her voice when she called him a coward, and even the memory of the words hurt him. He went to his bag, relieved to put some space between himself and Payson's righteous anger, and pulled out his All Around gold medal from Sydney. She stood still as he placed it around her neck.

"I'm a selfish man," he confessed. "I know that I should stay away, and if I was a stronger person I would turn around and go back to Romania tonight, but I can't live with you hating me. I can't look at this medal and know that the only reason I have it back is because you're disappointed in me."

A lot of emotions were playing across Payson's face, but none of them were the forgiveness he was seeking. The most prominent was confusion. "Why do you have that picture of me out?"

He was beginning to wish that Kim had never given him a copy of that picture. It had been tormenting him since the day he left Boulder and now Payson was asking questions about it that he couldn't answer. "Why do you even care?"

"Like I said before, I'm just trying to understand. I know why _I_ have it sitting in my room at home. Now I just want to know why you have it here."

"Why do you have it in your room?" he asked, and for once he wasn't trying to distract her. He honestly didn't understand his obsession with that photograph and he was hoping that her answer might help him.

She didn't say anything, but her expression said plenty. She was looking at him like he was a complete moron who was missing something obvious. He watched her for a few seconds before he realized that he _was_ a complete moron. "_Oh_. But that was taken months ago."

"Yeah, I know," she said, not giving him anything else.

He had been so incredibly blind. He thought that Payson's feelings for him had developed out of misdirected gratitude for the help he'd given her after her injury, and even felt guilty that he might have misled her by his actions during that time, but if she felt that way even before Nationals… They were close from the beginning, but before her injury there was no extraordinary attention toward her, no special experiences together or nights at the ballet that a teenage girl could easily construe as something more than it was. If she had feelings for him back then, that meant she had feelings for _him_, not for what he'd done for her.

"So why do you have it?" she asked again. Why did he have it? He'd wondered a hundred times and never had an answer before, but did he have one now? Was it possible that the reason he spent so much time looking at that picture was because he was wishing to be back there with her?

He opened his mouth once and nothing came out, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "I—I suspect for the same reason you do."

She stepped closer to him again so that she had to lift her head up in order to meet his eyes, and for an instant he thought she was going to kiss him. He was surprised by how disappointed he was when all she did was say, "And how long have you had it?"

"A long time," was all he could say. He knew she wasn't being literal. She wanted to know about the meaning behind the photograph, not the photograph itself, and he wasn't sure yet. The revelation was too new. "I didn't realize. I didn't make the connection."

She lifted on her toes a bit, more of an instinct than a conscious decision, but she still didn't kiss him. Sasha realized that she wouldn't take that risk again, no matter how much she might want to, so in a split second of insanity he dipped his head down and kissed her.

She might have been hesitant to start the kiss, but she showed no qualms about continuing it. He shouldn't have been surprised by the ferocity of her response. She was passionate in every other aspect of her life, so there was no reason to expect that she would be tame in her love life. He had a feeling that this would make the next year of his life very difficult.

He didn't come to his senses until they were on the bed and Payson was clawing to pull his t-shirt off. He was glad that he put it on, because if he'd still been shirtless and she was trying to remove his trousers instead, he likely wouldn't have had the strength to stop. As it was he barely had enough control to put a few inches of space between them.

"Payson—Payson, stop. We can't do this."

"Why?" she asked, her voice full of genuine confusion. She was too clouded with lust to think clearly, and this was probably the first time she'd been in this kind of situation so she wouldn't know how to control herself.

"I don't want to be that man," he explained. "I don't want to be the man that sleeps with one of the girls he's coaching. It's not right, Payson."

She sat up, frustration clear in her expression. "Sasha, are you seriously saying that you _refuse_ to have sex with me until the Olympics are over?"

"Yes." It was gut wrenching to say it, especially when she was sitting in front of him with her hair mussed up and the top of her pajamas partially unbuttoned (when did that happen, anyway?), but he didn't have a choice. No matter how badly they both might want to, they couldn't sleep together. Not while he was still coaching her.

"So what if I decide not to retire after London? If I want to go to Rio, are you really going to wait for _five years_?" He hadn't even considered the possibility that she might want to go to Rio. Girls who were fifteen or sixteen during the Olympics sometimes kept competing for another year of two, and rarely a second run at the Games, but Payson would be eighteen in London, and twenty two in Rio. She had the talent and the drive to do it, and a part of him was excited about the prospect four extra years working with her, but a very specific part of him didn't want that to happen. He _didn't_ want to wait five years to be with her. He didn't really even want to wait five minutes.

She must have read his thoughts from his eyes, because she leaned in to kiss him again. He was barely strong enough to resist and push her away. "Okay, you're right, I don't want to wait, but what I want is irrelevant right now. If you decide to keep competing after London then we'll reconsider this, but for now we _can't_ be together. You're seventeen. This is illegal."

Her response was the most maddening thing Sasha could imagine. "It's illegal in Colorado. We're in Hungary."

He groaned, a mixture of desire and absolute frustration. "Payson, you're killing me. This can't happen. Not until after the Olympics."

She sighed heavily and collapsed against the bed. She had a real flair for the dramatic when it suited her. "Fine," she spat out, her disappointment making her petulant. Sasha had to remind himself that she was young and inexperienced, and probably feeling more than a little rejected right then.

He shifted closer to her and rested a hand against her hip, the most he would trust himself to touch her at the moment. "Payson, I'm trying to do the right thing here. You are… the most tempting thing I've encountered in a long time. It's taking everything I've got to stay in control here, but I don't want to screw this up. You've known how you felt about me for months, but I only figured out how I feel about you about ten minutes ago. Give me a little time."

She smiled up at him, her wounded pride appeased for the moment. "Okay, time. I can do that. A little time, at least. I won't guarantee that I'll wait until the Olympics are over, though."

He couldn't help but chuckle at her teasing. He'd missed it so much while he was in Romania. "You really are a cheeky little brat, aren't you?"

"Yes, but that's why you love me, isn't it?"

That stopped him cold. The word 'love' hadn't even entered his head. He cared about her, he was attracted to her, and he knew without a doubt that he would still want to be with her after London or even after Rio, but did he _love_ her? Years ago he thought he was in love with MJ, but this felt nothing like that. Honestly, it felt a lot better. He respected Payson in a way that he had never respected MJ. He trusted Payson in a way that he had never trusted _anyone_ before. Yes… yes, it was very possible that he was in love with Payson Keeler.

"That's part of it," he answered, trying not to give away what a huge revelation he'd just had. "A small part. So why exactly is it that you love me?"

The question didn't faze her. Like he'd said earlier, she'd understood her feelings for him for a long time. "You're Sasha. That's all the reason I need."

He understood exactly what she meant. He was sure that the next ten months would be difficult, and Payson would probably test him to the very limits, but it would be worth it… because she was Payson, and that was all the reason he needed to love her.


End file.
